Trump hesitant to cut off Iran from international financial systemThe Donald Trump administration is reconsidering plans to compel the international financial messaging network SWIFT to cut off Iranian banks amid push-back from European allies. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the Trump administration is holding internal discussions that indicate that the United States may relent on its pressure on the Belgium-based network ahead of the reimposition of sanctions on Iran’s oil industry next month. SWIFT sanctions on Iran were lifted as part of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which the United States withdrew from in May.Read More​

David Albright, Olli Heinonen, and Andrea Stricker write: The documentation indicates that Iran’s nuclear weaponization efforts did not stop after 2003, following a so-called “halt order.” To conduct this assessment of the evolution of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the Institute obtained vital archive documentation from the media and during interviews with senior Israeli intelligence officials familiar with the archive. In this report, we assess and compare new information with other public documents and information. – Institute for Science and International Security

Eric Brewer writes: Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif stated that if Europe could not meet Iran’s demands for sustained economic benefits following the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal, Tehran would be within its rights to resume some of its nuclear activities. […]If the Trump administration is to successfully manage the risks in this new environment while it tries to reach a better deal, there are six points that the White House, Congress, and American public would do well to keep in mind. – War on the Rocks

The SWIFT banking network, the backbone for international monetary transfers, said Monday it has suspended several Iranian banks from its service, after the United States reimposed nuclear sanctions on Tehran. – Agence France-Presse

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani pledged Monday that his country would not buckle under the weight of newly re-imposed U.S. sanctions, calling the penalties on its oil and banking sectors “unfair” and “against the law, U.N. resolutions and international accords.” – Politico

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said he wants to impose sanctions on Iran’s oil gradually, citing concerns about shocking energy markets and causing global price spikes. – Reuters

President Trump will let countries helping to overhaul three Iranian nuclear facilities escape sanctions that have been reimposed as part of the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement, the State Department confirmed Monday. – Washington Examiner

Michael Rubin writes: The basis of President Trump’s strategy on Iran is to coerce change through economic warfare. There are reasons to agree or disagree with Trump’s pull-out from the Iran nuclear deal, but to argue either that Tehran is impervious to pressure or that trade with Iran provides the best path to moderation are both false. – Washington Examiner​Stephanie Segal writes: The immediate impacts of sanctions on the Iranian economy are apparent–oil production and GDP growth are collapsing, Iran’s currency is weakening, and inflation is picking up. Longer-term impacts remain to be seen, including how partner countries adapt to forceful unilateral action by the United States and the role of the dollar as the world’s preeminent reserve currency. – Center for Strategic & International Studies

Gregory Waters writes: The Tiger Forces is a Syrian Air Intelligence-affiliated militia fighting for the Syrian government and backed by Russia. While often described as the Syrian government’s elite fighting force, this research portrays a starkly different picture. […]Despite a decentralized command structure, the Tiger Forces’ capabilities far exceed any other unit currently fighting in the Syrian civil war. – Middle East Institute

Marwan Kabalan writes: Putin’s remarks on Idlib were also an indication that his ultimate goal in Syria is to end all foreign military presence there, including Turkish, French, and particularly the US. […]With all these different agendas, interests and objectives, it is extremely difficult to see how the main powers in the Syrian conflict can reach an agreement. In the end, even if they do, it will certainly be at the expense of the Syrian people – Al Jazeera

Edward Lucas writes: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have all had problems with their banks. […]The biggest beneficiary of all this is Russia. The Kremlin loathes the idea of its former colonies becoming economic or political success stories. So it uses money to attack them. The financial malpractice pays an immediate dividend in terms of successful money-laundering, but also a political one in terms of damaged reputations. Local banks, in short, are a far graver threat to national security than the enemy’s tanks. – European Policy Analysis

Edward Lucas writes: It is time to drop the fiction that Russia and China are normal countries with which we can conduct normal diplomacy. They should be seen as rogue states, akin to North Korea or Iran. […]They are not interested in playing by the rules of the international system. They are interested in exploiting and abusing those rules for political ends. Once we realize that, we have a chance of defending ourselves—and our allies. – European Policy Analysis

The migrant caravan is a symptom of nagging challenges in Central AmericaRoger F. Noriega | AEIdeas President Trump has said he will cut US aid to Central American countries because of their governments’ failure to turn back the growing march. Those aid programs are aimed at helping countries improve security and jump-start economic growth. Without progress on these fronts, the migrants will keep coming.

James Stavridis writes: A recent bit of high-visibility branding by National Security Adviser John Bolton created quite a reaction in Latin America. In a forceful speech delivered to South Florida anti-Castro true believers, he called Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela a “troika of tyranny.” […]Instead of over-focusing on the troika of tyranny, our energies should go into working with our Three Amigos in South America: Argentina, Brazil and Colombia. – Bloomberg

Missing Nigerian separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu has resurfaced in Israel more than a year after soldiers stormed his home. “I’m in Israel,” Mr Kanu said on Sunday in a broadcast on his outlawed pirate radio station – Radio Biafra. – BBC News

Ethiopia and the separatist Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) have signed a peace deal, ending the ONLF’s 34-year armed rebellion. The deal stipulates that both sides will cease hostilities, with the ONLF agreeing to use peaceful political means to pursue independence for Ethiopia’s Somali-speaking region – known as Ogaden. – BBC News​Health teams responding to Congo’s latest Ebola outbreak are attacked three or four times a week on average, a level of violence unseen in the country’s nine previous outbreaks of the deadly virus, the health ministry said Monday. – Associated Press

Assessment of Current Efforts to Fight the Islamic StateBy Ido Levy, Divergent Options: “International and regional forces have all but deprived the Islamic State (IS) of its territory, yet its apocalyptic ideology allows it to continue fighting despite these losses. IS’s goal to prepare the world for the end times does not require territory and will serve as a justification for its surviving members to maintain insurgencies in the Middle East and elsewhere."

The Easter Offensive of 1972By W. R. Baker, Small Wars Journal: “The Easter Offensive of 1972, coming at the end of the Vietnam War, is usually an afterthought in most histories of the conflict, primarily because most U.S. troops had already left the country..” ​

Al Qaeda’s affiliate in East Africa, al Shabaab, has weathered intensified U.S. direct action operations to retain its area of operations in Somalia and eastern Kenya, as a new map by Analyst James Barnett demonstrates. Al Shabaab continues to undermine the Somali state, conducting twin suicide bombings this week to derail a contentious regional election in southern Somalia. The latest attacks come one year after the deadliest terror attack in Somalia’s history, in which al Shabaab killed nearly 600 people in Mogadishu.

The Salafi-jihadi movement, which includes al Qaeda and ISIS, is growing in West Africa. The Mali-based branch of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is promoting its expansion into Burkina Faso, where attacks targeting security forces and the mining industry have escalated this year. Another group, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), has also expanded in Mali and Burkina Faso, as Senior Analyst Emily Estelle illustrates in a new graphic.

In the coming weeks, Research Fellow Katherine Zimmerman will release a report on how Salafi-jihadi groups have adapted to U.S. counterterrorism policy. Revisit Zimmerman’s work in “America’s Real Enemy: The Salafi-Jihadi Movement,” in which she argues that the U.S. has misdefined its enemy in the war on terror.

Moscow’s S-300 Double Bluff in Syria By Roger McDermott, Eurasia Daily Monitor: “Such systems, apart from their role in air defense, form an integral part of the Russian Armed Forces’ stand-off strike capability, feed into a layered air defense, and constitute important elements of Russia’s anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategies.”

A New Era For The China-Russia-US Triangleby Victor Davis Hanson via American GreatnessNearly a half-century ago, President Richard Nixon’s secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, established a successful U.S. strategy for dealing with America’s two most dangerous rivals. He sought closer ties to both the Soviet Union, with its more than 7,000 nuclear weapons, and Communist China, with the world’s largest population.

No Eclipseby LTC Marcus Ferrara via AnalysisAn American crisis of confidence, augmented by effective Chinese propaganda, has driven the narrative of the end of the “American Century,” replaced with a Chinese one. An analysis of such metrics as demography, social stability, geography, the environment, economics, military strength and capability, and soft power belies the concept of American decline and shows that China is beset with substantial internal and international challenges that indicate continued United States dominance in world affairs.